‘Last Flag Flying’ Moves To Lionsgate And Up A Week On Release Schedule

Lionsgate will now release Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying on Nov. 3, moving up from the previously scheduled date of Nov. 17. Amazon Studios financed the film and was due to release it initially. The drama will open in limited release only days after it premieres at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 28. Amazon goes to NYFF with Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel.

The film is a road movie (ala Hal Ashby’s 1973 drama The Last Detail) in which three aging Vietnam-era Navy vets—soft-spoken Doc (Steve Carell), unhinged and unfiltered Sal (Bryan Cranston), and quietly measured Mueller (Laurence Fishburne)—reunite to perform a sacred task: the proper burial of Doc’s only child, who has been killed in the early days of the Iraqi invasion.

A similar release strategy was employed between Amazon and Lionsgate for the Amazon-financed films The Big Sick and Allen’s Cafe Society.